15 Best Things to Do in Bourges (France)

An enchanting medieval city, Bourges was the capital of the historic Province of Berry and a centre of trade in the 15th and 16th centuries.

The old town is replete with luxurious mansions built for merchants, side-by-side with top-heavy half-timbered houses.

The cathedral is an absolute wonder and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, looking like no other church in the world.

Bourges is also the place to get to know Jacques Cœur, a merchant who travelled far and wide and worked his way into the court of King Charles VII. And if that isn’t enough you can break out into the pastoral Marais where thousands of little garden plots are navigated by a lattice of water channels.

1. Bourges Cathedral

A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Bourges Cathedral is extraordinary on many levels.

The first thing that might catch your eye is the lack of a transept, as there’s no break between the nave and choir.

This departure from the norm is only made possible by the rows of flying buttresses that run the length of the nave and choir.

On the inside there’s a unique double aisle that seamlessly becomes a double ambulatory.

At this eastern side of the church nearly all of the stained glass you’ll see is original, remarkably surviving from the 1215 and conveying bible scenes like Christ’s parables, the Passion, the Apocalypse and Last Judgement.

3. Old Town

In 1487 there was a great fire in Bourges that destroyed a third of the city and stunted its development as it lost its annual fairs to Troyes and Lyon.

But it also gives us a very unified old town, with diamond-pattern timber houses packed close together on streets like Rue Bourbonnoux, and a host of stone-built Renaissance mansions.

All you need are your own two feet and a sense of wonder and you’ll find exciting landmarks like the house where the famous merchant Jacques Cœur was born in 1395. There are also some fantastic merchants’ houses from earlier in the 1400s that survived the fire and are either attractions on their own terms or host the city’s museums.

4. Palais Jacques-Cœur

In the middle of the 15th-century the wealthy merchant and treasurer to King Charles VII, Jacques Cœur commissioned this breathtaking Gothic residence.

The Palais Jacques-Cœur came some time before the Loire Valley’s exuberant Renaissance châteaux, but its carvings lack none of their elegance and richness.

Like its first owner, who opened trade between France and the Levant, the palace has lots of stories to tell: As you move from the galleried courtyard to the spiral staircases, steamrooms, private apartments, servants’ areas and treasure room, video presentations with fill you in about the architecture, decoration and the people who lived here.

6. Marais de Bourges

Just a few minutes from the Old Town is an enclave of reclaimed marshland encompassing 135 hectares.

In ancient times this boggy countryside slowed Julius Caesar’s advance in his conquest of Gaul in 52BC. But from around the 8th century the marshes were brought under human control, and come the 17th-century they were drained and criss-crossed by a web of water channels.

Now the Marais is an outdoor escape for walkers and cyclists, not to mention urban gardening as the Marais is divided into almost 1,500 allotments that used to keep the whole city stocked with fruits and vegetables.

The channels abound with fish and waterfowl, and there isn’t a prettier place to be on warm June day when the gardens are in flower.

8. Musée Estève

This museum for the 20th-century artist, Maurice Estève could hardly have a nobler home.

The building is the Hôtel des Échevins (House of the Aldermen), a Gothic mansion with ornate stonework on its tower.

Over three floors connected by the tower’s spiral staircase, the museum has the largest single collection of art by Estève, whose career lasted eight decades and took him from surrealism to abstraction via a figurative period.

In the softly lit Galerie Lejuge you can see his sensational collages, watercolours and drawings, which are rotated every few months to keep them conserved.

10. Hôtel Lallemant

In Bourges you won’t tire of seeing the city’s old mansions because each is as beautiful as the last.

Hôtel Lallemant is one you can lose hours gazing at because of its external decorative sculptures, which are as sharp as ever and include quirky characters, pilasters, capitals, scrolls, columns and all sorts more.

The house is a masterpiece of the French Renaissance, and was built at the turn of the 16th century for a family of merchants that had originated in Germany.

Hôtel Lallemant is also built on the Gallo-Roman wall, which causes a divide between the upper and lower courtyards.

Call in for a small museum on decorative arts, which has a few rooms of miniature toys and antique furniture.

13. Lac du Val d’Auron

A man-made body of water a mere two kilometres south of the old town, the Lac du Val d’Auron is awash with activity in summer.

There’s carp fishing, sailing and canoeing on the lake, which has meadow and woodland on its southern shores and more of Bourges’ outskirts the further north you go.

It’s not all about watersports though, as there’s an equestrian centre on the western shore while just east of the lake is the 18-hole municipal golf course, with a nine-hole pitch & putt and a driving range.

15. Route Jacques Cœur

You’ve seen his birthplace and the resplendent mansion that he built, but there’s even more heritage in the Bourges area relating to the city’s famous son.

Jacques Cœur was a pretty interesting character and you can find other places relevant to him on a designated route that was set up as long ago as 1954. There are 16 sites on the itinerary, taking in towns in the region like Sancerre, also beloved for its wine, and Mehun sur Yèvre, which has the awe-inspiring ruins of a castle where Charles VII died in 1461.